In case you missed it, today is national Women’s Equality Day here in the U.S. Hooray!

Today we celebrate the 95th anniversary of women winning the right to vote. While many know about the women’s suffrage movement and their leaders, some may be surprised to learn that they were against abortion.

In a 2010 Op-Ed for the Washington Post, Susan B. Anthony List founder and president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, dismantled the idea that somehow our foremothers in the fight for women’s equality were in favor of abortion since they had little to say about it.

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Here I’ll share some quotes Dannenfelser gathered to prove her point that Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others were indeed opposed to abortion.

“Guilty? Yes. No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; but oh, thrice guilty is he who… drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime!” – Susan B. Anthony

“When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit.” – Elizabeth Cady Stanton

“Every woman knows that if she were free, she would never bear an unwished-for child, nor think of murdering one before its birth.” Victoria Woodhull

“The gross perversion and destruction of motherhood by the abortionist filled me with indignation, and awakened active antagonism. That the honorable term ‘female physician’ should be exclusively applied to those women who carried on this shocking trade seemed to me a horror. It was an utter degradation of what might and should become a noble position for women.” – Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell

Happy Women’s Equality Day!

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Hillary Mast

Hillary Mast, a staff writer for Catholic News Agency and EWTN News, holds a history degree from Franciscan University of Steubenville. She enjoys writing human interest stories and reporting on news that has a positive impact on readers.